Buzzgain

“Be authentic. Be transparent. Be you.”

First, let me tell you something you know already. Most companies are way beautiful on the outside than on the inside.

Outside: Your website – fabulous. Your investors – blue chip. Your customers – love you.

On the inside - website: multiple bad links, daily duct tape and band aid. Investors – demanding daily (or hourly) updates on your leads, conversions and financial numbers. Customers – reporting bugs like they are going out of fashion.

So why is “Be authentic…” the most useless piece of advice?

Because no one wants to know the real company they are dealing with.

1. Prospects dont want to know that the “cancel anytime with no repercussions” policy will make your financial projections (and hence your ability to service them) go nuts.

2. Customers dont care that the bugs, if fixed, will still not solve the fundamental architecture issue your product has.

3. Investors wont hear you plead that if you hire that rock star developer; the rest of the team will a demand wage hike which will increase your burn rate.

To them its like a hot dog - Let me eat it, don’t tell me how its made.

What they are really trying to tell you is:

“Change your policies so you can be a better you. Then be authentic, transparent and honest”.

Until then just keep posting stuff that you’d rather be.

Unless most companies fundamentally make a cultural change to be more customer friendly, less focused only on the bottom line and more on lifetime value of a customer and their brand, they’d rather not be authentic.

Update: Read another post on this topic by Rachel Happe.